Batting also takes a few new strides. There's no batting cursor this year, which isn't exactly a new thing but seems to be the current trend. What is unique, however, is how batting and pitching work in tandem to determine contact and power. Each player has hot and cold zones, something we've seen before, and these overlay the strike zone. Of course a ball in your hot or neutral zone will likely get better contact than one in your cold zone, but EA's put extra goodness to increase the realism.

The left thumbstick is used not to aim, as there's no batting cursor, but to determine your type of swing. You wanna hit it in the air, push up. You want a grounder, push down. And if you want to pull a ball or try and go the opposite field, push left or right at the same time. Like in real baseball, trying to pull an outside pitch will likely result in an out. So pitch location, type of swing, timing, and batter and pitching stats all factor into how well the ball is hit. And from the hour or so I played, it seemed pretty correct. What's amazing is that in the short time, I felt more like a batter than I can remember in any previous ballgame. Because I'm thinking, what type of pitch is this, if it's inside I have to try and pull it if it's outside I wanna let it go so I can try and rip the next one. There's depth in both the pitching and batting and I can't wait to dig deep into MVP and find out just how truly accurate it is. But I gotta say, I'm impressed with what I've seen so far.

The last good nugget comes with baserunning. Baseball games in the past have always used the standard diamond in the corner with yellow dots signifying runners. MVP expands on this, showing pictures of all runners on base. This picture remains at all times, so that when you whack a ball into the outfield, even though the camera follows the ball, you can see how close your baserunner is to base. This helps you determine if you should stretch a hit out, stay put, it even helps you determine if you need to slide. And it helps fielders too, who can see where it's best to throw the ball.

More importantly, each base is labeled clearly with the corresponding button and as a runner moves from first to second, they pop from the lower right corner to the upper part of the display diamond. Controller individual baserunners has never, to my memory (and I've been playing baseball games for 20 years), been this easy.

Visually, MVP is still missing a few key graphic ingredients. There are some visual aid problems, like seeing the ball in the outfield and even seeing the ball trajectory properly. And there's really no proper lighting in the game yet and a lot of missing animations. However, it looks a lot better than Triple Play and looks to be the equivalent of All-Star Baseball. Much better than the choppy, big-headed baseball EA put out last year. Oh yeah, all models and animations were redone, so players are actually proportioned properly! Will wonders ever cease?

I was curious to see what EA could do with the dying Triple Play franchise and while I expected something better, I didn't expect something quite this good. But like I said in the beginning, you need time with a baseball game to really see how it works, to feel out its flaws and strengths. MVP Baseball 2003 will certainly see plenty of time in my Xbox, hopefully it can live up to my newly acquired high expectations.

Aaron's Take Make no mistake, the last baseball simulation from EA was so disappointing that the name Triple Play is no more. Long live MVP Baseball 2003, EA's promising new take on the game of baseball, boasting a franchise mode that should give sports gamers a few things that we've always wanted.

First up, you'll have a list of goals that you'll want to accomplish for your franchise. Meeting these goals are a great way to lock down your job security as manager of your favorite MLB franchise, but they are anything but easy and vary depending on the recent history of the real life team. For example the list of 8-10 goals for the New York Yankees will include things like "Win 5 out of the next 8 World Series Championships," and "Win Two Triple Crowns." Now crappy teams like the Detroit Tigers may have similar goals as far as individual accomplishments are concerned --like "Win Two MVP Awards"-- but larger team goals may be as simple as "Finish above .500" or "Make the Playoffs." Obviously most goals go hand in hand with winning games, but the point here is if you're going to win, you might as well win big and do it in style. Winning pennants and World Series titles adds to your team budget for the next season, but knocking out a few of the goals adds even more to your team's bottom line. Consistently falling short of team goals, which invariably coincides with losing, is a sure way to get canned. But all is not lost.